Strategic Planning Sessions, Your 10 Step Guide For Success

“Hey, are you ready to start planning the new initiative?”  This question is one we hear all the time and can feel overwhelming.  There are so many things that need to happen in order to start planning for a new initiative or major project.  But first things first. you need to run strategic planning sessions to get your team aligned.

You’re in luck, you can use our Strategy Sprint guide to help you know exactly what to do and what order to do it in.  After the strategy sessions you and your team can hit the ground running with clarity, full alignment and even clear action steps so you and your team don’t leave another meeting thinking, “So what do we do now”?

What Is A Strategy Sprint?

This is where you and your team will quickly create a clear strategy of how to start a new project or initiatives.  It gives the team a sense of where they are going and what to focus on.  

Here are a few questions a Strategy Sprint will help your team get answers to:

• What's the goal?

• Where are we going as a company or team?

• What does success look like?

• What’s the big picture here?

• What is the actual end point of what we’re trying to do here?

• How will we actually get to our goal?

• What is the big overarching focus of this company or team?

• In what order will we actually do things?

• What are the big projects and big initiatives that we need to run this year or quarter?

Strategic planning sessions is different from making a plan which you will learn more about later on.  Also a strategy is meant to be a living document.  It’s not meant to be set in stone.  Things happen and you will want to adjust accordingly.  As my graduate professor would say, “The map is not the territory”.

A strategy is basically an informed experiment of how to move forward.  We cannot predict the future but we can be purposeful about what we think is the best way to navigate it.  

In this guide we will share how to run our Strategy Sprint.  Giving you the framework needed to answer those questions and more.  Leaving you and your team feeling confident to move forward.  

Let's jump in.  

The 10 Steps Of Our Strategy Sprint

The goal of discovery is to collect as much information as you can about the type of work you and your team will be focused on during the strategy session.  There are a variety of things to look into.  The more discovery work you do before the strategy sessions, the richer your conversations and outcomes will be.

This is list of things we look into before we run our Strategy Sprints with our customers:

• A business canvas

• A SWOT analysis

• Market research

• Competitive analysis

• Interview with experts

• Interview/surveys with team members

Also before the session we recommend creating a summary of all that information and sharing it with everyone who is attending.  Try to make the main points and insights really clear upfront.  This helps enrich the conversation during the strategic planning session.  

Now let's dive into to the actual Strategy Sprint.

The goal of the purpose is to help the team identify their north star.  Giving them clarity of where they are going and who they do this work for.  

To get the team started have everyone fill out these two phrases:

• We exist to… (why you do what you do)

• We do this for… (who you do this for)

Then have the team share their favorite ones and why they picked that purpose.  After the team has shared all their ideas then it’s up to decider to pick one the team will move forward with.  It’s okay if the purpose feels a little “pie in the sky”.  We will put things in place to keep things more grounded.  

As a side note - the decider is generally the person responsible for the new project or initiative.  

In strategic planning sessions, having a decider is critical.  Without one it’s easy to have conversations go on for a long time and not end with a clear outcome.  

The role of the decider is to make sure the team makes a decision and moves on to the next item.  A decider is not about someone having power over others.  It’s simple a productivity tool.  

Now that you have your team or company's purpose of why you exist and who you help, you can move onto the next part.  

The goal of the 2-year objective is to provide a specific target that feels close and feasible.  Often five years can feel a little too long and not realistic (most of the time). The objective is a clear endpoint, a destination that aligns with the team’s purpose.  

Here is a really great example of an objective (even though it's not in 2-year objective, which makes sense for this example):

That is a very clear objective.  We know what to focus on and when we have reached it.  

To create a 2-year objective have each team member fill out the rest of this phase:

In 2 years time…

Give the team time to think about and write down several different objectives.  Then have each person choose one to present to the team.  Afterwards each team member will vote on which one they think is best to move forward with.  After all the opinions are shared, the decider will choose the final 2-year objective.  

Now your team has a clear purpose and 2-year objective. Let's move onto the next step! 

The goal of measurements is to know what key metrics to monitor that make sure the strategy is on the track for achieving the objective.  Generally metrics have a number associated with it.  Such as a “90% satisfaction score” or “50% reduction in turnover”.

Be careful of unclear metrics.  Especially if this is the team's first time creating a strategy.  An example of an unclear metric is “Have more knowledge and information”.  That really doesn't let the team know what progress is being made on the objective.  It’s just a general thing that has happened.  

Now if you have no idea of what numbers to start off with, there are a couple of things you can do.  You can look into other organizations and see their averages.  You can also come up with a number, check back on the progress after a certain amount of time, and adjust the numbers accordingly.  

For example, let's use turnover.  Lets say your turnover rate is 80% (yes that a real number, I know a few organizations that have that, and some with even higher rates.  Yikes!).  You create a goal to reduce the turnover to 0% but after a year it’s reduced down to 70%.  

You might adjust your number for next year.  Perhaps you change the metric to be 40%.  Be careful of having metrics that feel too unrealistic within a given timeframe. It can feel discouraging to a team.  So try to find something that doesn’t feel impossible, while still being a stretch.  

Now let's get your team to create and pick three metrics.  

To get your team started, have them write out as many metrics as they can think of that will measure progress of the objective. The starting phrase they can use is:

As measured by… 

Not all of the ideas will be strong metrics, which is okay and natural.  That is why the team should come up with as many metrics as possible.  

Then each team member will vote on the top three metrics they think will measure how the team is progressing towards the objective.  Then the decider will pick the final three metrics.

Now your team has a purpose, 2-year objective and measurements.  Now the team is ready to move onto the next step.  This is often the most overlooked and least practiced step, and yet it's one of the most important.   

At the end, the decider will pick the top three critical challenges for the team to focus on.  Later the team will work to identify how to overcome those challenges.  

If you want a more in-depth resource on how to identify and prioritize challenges click the picture “How Every Team Can Create A More Comprehensive Strategy” above.

Now you have a purpose, 2-year objective, metrics and critical challenges.  Now let's move onto the next step.  

The goal of guiding policies is to understand how the team will generally approach the challenges and objectives.  This is done by identifying principles, values, guardrails or necessary ways of working in order to realize the purpose and objective.  

To be clear, these are not rules.  These are meant to support the team in navigating future challenges and decisions with structure and flexibility.   

Here are a few examples of what a guiding policy can look like:

• We provide only evidenced based practices for our services

• We can pull team members from different departments to complete this project

• We leverage the relationship of partners and experts instead of building internal capacity

These help the team identify what are the general guardrails and ways of working in order to reach the objective.  

To get this started, have everyone think about the best ways of working to reach the objective.  You can have them fill out the phase:

We realize this by… (“this” being the objective)

Once the team has identified a variety of guiding policies, give each of them a chance to vote and share which ones they think is best to move forward with.  Then the decider will pick the top three guiding policies. 

As a side note - our instructions are also guiding policies, they are not rules.  If you want four challenges or five metrics then feel free.  Just make sure they are reasonable and will not get in the way of the overall objective.

Now we have the purpose, 2-year objective, metrics, critical challenges, and guiding policies.  Now you can move forward onto the next step where we start gathering inspiration for the product/service of this strategy.  

The goal of related words is to get inspiration before creating a new project for the initiative.  This is done by looking into other organizations that are doing similar but different work, generally outside of the related field. 

This helps the creative juices flow when creating new projects.  

To start this exercise you want to give everyone some time to do research into other organizations.

Each person is identifying three parts.  First you have the name of the organization you looked into.  Next, a short simple description of the main idea you are sharing.  Finally the basic components of the idea.  

For example:

Company - Home Depot

Big Idea - They have clear customer segments

Components of the idea - They have three different main customers  - do it yourself customers, do it for me customers and professional customers like contractors.

This insight helps the team think differently about how they view their customers.  Again the goal of this exercise is to look outside the box and see what other organizations are doing.  Helping your team think creatively and come up with innovative ideas. 

Now we have the purpose, 2-year objective, metrics, critical challenges, guiding policies and inspiration.  Now your team is primed to move onto the next step.

The goal is to identify a variety of “experiments” to implement over the next two years to bring the team towards their objective and purpose.  We say experiment because no one knows what the outcome will be. Often these experiments are new product/service.

At this point it's a good idea to take a bit of time to review everything you have.  All the work you have done including the challenges and pre-work discovery.  

Then you give your team time to think of project ideas they can work on to get to the objective.  

We are still going to keep things simple and not dive too deep into the details of the projects.  This is to brainstorm what projects could be done.  A simple way of doing this is to have the team come up with two-three project concepts.  

Doing it this way allows teams to brainstorm ideas and give some detail without getting too much into the weeds.  Don't worry we’ll get into the weeds, we’re just saving that for later!

Here is how the team can create project concepts:

Catch Title

The Main Idea

6 step customer journey

These three parts give the team a general idea of each project.  Once each team member has completed 2-3 project concepts, they will share each one with the rest of the team.  Then each team member can ask clarifying questions to get a good sense of what the project is.  

During this, the team is not talking about why something won’t work or why something is a bad idea.  That is not the purpose of this step and will cause people to disengage during the strategy sessions.  

Once all the concepts are complete, each person will vote on the one they think the team should move forward with and explain why.  Then the decider will pick three to five projects that the team will move forward with.  

Remember to pick project concepts you think have the best shot of reaching the objective.  Sometimes people pick projects that are interesting or cool, but do not align with the original objective.   

Also keep in mind the challenges that were talked about before.  This is a good opportunity to see if there are any project concepts that move the team towards the objective and overcome some of the challenges.  

Now the team has a vision, 2-year objective, metrics, critical challenges, guiding policies, related worlds and project concepts.  Now you are ready to move onto the next part.  

The goal is to identify which projects will be done in what order over the next two years.  This starts to shape the map of how the strategy will be executed.  

This is a pretty simple exercise.  You take each concept and place it on a timeline over the next two years.  Start with the first project you (as the decider) want the team to start working on.  Feel free to open up the conversation about which one should go first, second and so on.

Then on the timeline, you place the project concept when you believe it should start and for how long it should take.  One month, three months, five months, etc.  Then after the first concept, move onto the next one and repeat the process.

For example, on the timeline below the project will start in mid July and end Mid August.

Do not get too caught up in exact details.  When working on this we tend to think about it in terms of months, not days.  This is meant to give a general timeframe of when these will be worked on.  People tend to feel more grounded in the strategy when they know what will be done and by when.

By now you should have a strong understanding of the overall strategy.  But oftentimes teams stop there.  In our Strategy Sprint there is still more work to be done to make sure the team is fully aligned and knows exactly what to do. 

You now have a vision, 2-year objective, metrics, critical challenges, guiding policies, related worlds, project concepts and general timeline.  Now you are ready to move onto the next part.  

The goal is to have a clear visual blueprint of every part of the first project.  The customer’s experience, the staff duties, the backend process and tools necessary for each step of the customer journey.  The blueprint starts from when the customer first hears about the product/service until after they have completed the product/service.

This is where we get into the nitty gritty details of the product/service. There are six sections to the Service Blueprint.  

Below is an outline of each section:  

• Section 1 - Entice

  • How does someone become aware of the service?

• Section 2 - Engage

  • How do they learn about the service and say yes to it?

• Section 3 - Enter

  • What do people experience as they begin to use the service?

• Section 4 - Experience

  • In the core moments in the service, what happens?

• Section 5 - Exit 

  • What do people typically experience as they process finishes?

• Section 6 - Extend

  • What happens after the experience is over?

Each section consists of three main parts:  

• Each step the customer goes through

• Each steps staff does to support each step of the customers experience

• The backend necessary for each step (technology, processes, tools)

When you have this filled out, the details of the initial project regarding the service/product become extremely clear.  

So how does your team start creating one?

Using sticky notes, start with the customer experience and go through the different sections, starting with Entice.  Each new sticky note that is placed to the right of the previous one represents a new step/action taken by the customer.  Then go through each section and fill out everything the customer does when they use your product/service. 

It’s best to use sticky notes because you can easily rearrange the steps as you build it out.  Also, the experience becomes visualized which is a key benefit to the Service Blueprint.  No one has to hold any step in their head which provides the team more mental processing power to think deeply.  

Next the team will add the steps staff take along the customer journey.  Some steps may not need a staff member or are done digitally which is perfectly fine.  

The final part is the backend.  This is adding all the software, processes, tools, etc that is needed for each step to be complete.  

Here is a really simple example using a coffee shop:

Once your team has created this, they will  become crystal clear as to what the new product/service will be.  

This has a lot of detail and takes some time so please be patient.  There will be a lot of rearranging which is totally normal.  It’s recommended to have only two people, plus the facilitator, work on this.  Since there is so much detail, too many cooks in the kitchen will make things harder.  I recommend using two people who would normally be in charge of setting up new products or services.

After this is all said and done, you can bring in the rest of the team to get them up to speed and even adjust the Service Blueprint as necessary.  

You now have a vision, 2-year objective, metrics, critical challenges, guiding policies, related worlds, project concepts, a general timeline and a Service Blueprint of the first project.  Now you are ready to move onto the last part of the Strategy Sprint.  

The goal is to identify the big steps needed to complete the first project, who is needed for each step, and the due dates of the major steps.  This helps the team know what they need to start doing right away in order to bring the project into reality.  

The best way to do this is to give the team some time to write down all the action steps they think are needed in order to complete the project.  Again we are talking about the main steps, not each and every step such as “respond to email”.  

The first person will share their steps, and then each person afterwards will only share any additional steps that were not included.  

Once you have all the possible steps, the decider chooses which steps are to be finalized in the action plan.  Once all the steps are picked, now the decider will choose due dates.  

When creating due dates, we recommend not to worry about each step having a due date.  Only identify major milestones.  So you may have 20 steps and 11 due dates.  

The last part is to identify who is responsible for each step.  First, ask each team member to volunteer which tasks they will be responsible for.  After that, there will still be a bunch of steps needed to be assigned.  Then the decider can choose who will complete the remaining steps.  

Please make sure each step has someone responsible for it.  This drastically increases the chance that the work gets completed.  As people take on the responsibility of the tasks, it is normal for some things to change, such as due dates.  

Now at the end of the action plan you should have all the major tasks, who is responsible for which tasks and what dates they will be completed by.  

Hooray!  You’ve done it!  This is the end of the strategic planning sessions!  

At this point you should have a vision, 2-year objective, metrics, critical challenges, guiding policies, related worlds, project concepts, a general timeline, a Service Blueprint and an action plan full of steps, who is responsible and due dates.

After completing our Strategy Sprint you have the 50,000 foot view, what will be done tomorrow and everything in between!

Remember that strategy is meant to be an experiment and not the exact map of what will happen.  The map is not the territory.  It’s just a helpful tool to get everyone on the same page and have unified effort towards a specific objective.  It is recommended that the team revisits the strategy at least once a quarter.  

We don’t recommend once a  year, because it’s too easy for teams to get off course due to a change in personnel, budget, unexpected emergencies, and other things that can get in the way.  

When you revisit the strategy, it will be a much easier and simpler process since you don’t have to redo all this work. The team will check in to see where they are at and what needs to be adjusted.  

The goal of the executive summary is to make the strategy succinct and come together in a nice “bow”.  

When working on the strategy it can be difficult to see how it all comes together.  A really well done executive summary brings together all the components of the strategy to solidify what was done during the Strategy Sprint. 

 It’s also a helpful tool to bring other employees and new hires on the same page.

Our executive summaries usually consist of two parts.  The first is a quick overview of the outcomes of each step.  Then a more detailed summary of each step of our Strategy Sprint.  

In summary

Now your team can align on a clear, comprehensive, actionable strategy. The team can quickly get the project off the ground. They can communicate better about the initiative. There will be less redundancies and better communication.

Helping the team save a lot of time, money and stress. And giving you more space to focus on what’s most important.

Lookin For Extra Help?

When creating a strategy there is one part that is often overlooked AND yet it’s one of the most important pieces.  If you are looking to get better at running strategy sessions, we have a resource for you.  

It's our free guide on how to identify and prioritize critical challenges.  This is often the most overlooked yet fundamental part of creating a strategy.  Our guide will help you develop a much more comprehensive strategic planning session.  

If you are looking for even more support and want to work with us feel free to click the button below to contact us!